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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Custom Shelving and an Ode to Mr. Williams

We just finished putting shelves in the office to create more storage for my craft supplies. Between our two desks, there's not a lot of floor space in the room, so we need to utilize the vertical space as best as possible. Zach designed and built the shelves himself, to fit my many craft bins.

Here's the space before. The bookshelves and file cabinet are from here. When we ordered them years ago we chose the antique cream finish, expecting something off white, but they're really more of a buttery yellow color. And yes, that's a light saber on top of the bookshelf. Can you tell this is Zach's side of the office?

Zach created a template for the shelf brackets, cut them out with a jig saw, then gave them an ogee edge with a router. He also routed the edges of the shelves with a round over bit.

Most of the bins hold fabric, the color of which is shown in a nifty little label window. I just cut out a small swatch of fabric from each bin and used that instead of a paper label.

In our old office we had room for a second file cabinet, which we painted to match the bookshelves and existing file cabinet. We used Behr semi-gloss and had it color matched at the store. Color-wise, it was a decent match, but we soon found out that the paint stayed tacky after drying, and anything we set on top of the file cabinet would stick and leave marks. So when we decided to paint the shelves to match the rest of the office furniture, we opted to try out a different brand of paint. After reading reviews online, we went with Sherwin Williams ProClassic interior latex in semi-gloss. We debated whether or not to use oil-based paint, but in the end decided against it because of the odor and the tendency for it to change color over time. I've always heard that Sherwin Williams made good paint, but one paint stroke proved it. ProClassic is the best paint I've ever used. Which is obviously no secret to Sherwin Williams, who prices a quart of the stuff at $20, similar to what you might pay for a gallon of another brand. But it's worth it. Coverage was excellent, it brushed on smooth and dried flat, not to mention the color matching was dead-on, better than Behr. In addition, the semi-gloss finish is less glossy than other brands, which I like. But the best part is that it dries hard, so objects don't stick to it. And maybe it was just my imagination but it even seemed like the paint rinsed out of the brushes and rollers more easily. (I wasn't given any compensation to gush about ProClassic, it's just really good stuff!)

The shelves may be painted and up, but we've still got a bit of work to do in this room, including organizing, buying desk chairs, and painting the walls. We're thinking about painting them a warm gray but haven't quite made up our minds.